Biggest changes of season 11?
Cassidy's flash now has a much more understandable and natural radius, compared to magnetic grenade being unpredictable
Magnetic grenade wasn't very beloved, they wanted to do something for quite a bit of time
What were the goals of the Season 11 patch?
Hitting top meta
Shifting power in heroes that haven't been changed in a while
Kiriko and Sojourn have been around and very prominent for a long time at the top meta, but they've started to see that Sojourn's popularity is dropping at a rapid rate
Roadhog's pretty popular - they don't try to aim for a certain popularity level by playing favourites with heroes
Sojourn and Illari are a good example of shifting power. Railgun now have a better base to work with, there's a lot more they can do with her now
Symmetra, D.va, Reaper got lost in the armour changes
_
What measures do you use to decide which maps need changes?
Community feedback is important, surveys are also done to figure out which maps and modes people like and don't like. Both inform "some targets", as well as intuition
The game's design philosophy has changed over time - old maps had brutal chokepoints, while newer maps are more breathable with lots of flank routes. Map changes in season 13 will open up some of those old maps and apply new design philosophies to them
A lot of learnings have been put into practice on Runasapi. Runback times are more polished, there are more direct and simple paths, areas around the points are more open. The final point is more of a choke, unlike Toronto where it's wide open
Push doesn't often "end" because teams aren't able to get that final 10%
_
"New heroes should be launched on the safe side of strong" - How does that statement from September 2023 apply to the hero releases since?
Illari was in the ballpark of what they meant, around 55-57% winrate which is a bit higher than normal
Mauga was average during the trial, but then they pushed too far and made him too tanky
Venture was also in the ballpark. Was a top 3 DPS during their launch period (2 weeks), remained strong after the first nerfs, and is still good after further tweaks. Considered a success
Trials give enough information that they feel confident putting heroes into competitive straight away
_
Supports with high skill ceilings and utility are often meta in high ranks (Baptiste, Kiriko, Lucio). But lower skill supports don't have that, are you looking to address that in future or current heroes?
It's okay if heroes never reach the highest levels never reach the highest levels of competitive play, like Moira. It's fine if heroes are a little more simple to understand, although they spent a lot of time looking at ways to introduce utility into Moira's kit. But it distracted from the main gameplay loop that people have grown attached to
_
Projectile heroes aren't as strong in OW2 because their utility has become a lot less effective, is that something you're looking at?
That's not necessarily true. Pharah is really strong, Venture is strong, it just may not feel like that because Cassidy is SO popular right now. Pharah has tripled her playtime in the last 3 weeks
There's a little to be done. Hanzo is one they've been talking about a lot recently, because he's lost his identity. Wondered if they should change storm arrows or bring back his one-shot at certain thresholds. They're playing with making some of the more squirrely heroes 225hp, which would also benefit Hanzo as he'd be very effective against them. Unsure of what his identity is going to be in the future
_
When people complain about meta it's often about the heroes that deny engagement, like Roadhog, Torbjorn. People will pick the more passive heroes which punishes active heroes. Fast characters are countered by characters that don't have to put in the same amount of effort. Is that factored in balancing?
Yeah
Lower skill heroes tend to be more consistent, while higher skill heroes have more of a payout. Looking at ways for heroes to be more proactive, introduce more risk. Currently looking at it for Mauga, who plays really well in highly coordinated teams but otherwise doesn't
During development, Venture's primary fire would break into shrapnel. It was purposefully weak but gave an option to deal with things at a longer range like turrets. But despite it being ineffective, players were hanging back and shooting. So they got rid of it to encourage going in, as well as adding the shields
_
Does the team prioritise balancing heroes that are more unpopular? Tracer has been "soft meta" for quite a long time with minor complaints, but when Roadhog or Mauga became meta for a much shorter period of time, people hated it. Does that factor into your decisions?
It does
Tanks get a lot more attention because a lot of the gameplay goes through them. Mauga and Roadhog are very survivable and they can blow people up
Heroes have a threshold for how long they can be meta before Blizzard have to come in and act. It differs greatly between heroes. If you see it once in every x amount of games it's okay, it doesn't need to be changed unless it's the thing you see every single game
We like Widow on certain maps, but we wouldn't want it on every map
_
Wrecking Ball is unkillable without CC, but too easily killable with it
We want weaknesses, Overwatch is built on it
How extreme should weaknesses be?
We're looking at things with Wrecking Ball, but also looking at things more broadly. Should some of these things be less effective on tanks? We're looking at sleep dart again, maybe hack should take a little bit longer to work on tanks? 👍
We think there's a way to smooth out Wrecking Ball
Wrecking Ball is one of the few characters who is more survivable then he was previously
Players want less hard counters. A lot of older designs have very, very hard counters
Some heroes they've made are a bit too well-rounded, they do a little bit of everything, especially supports
We have different goals for each role. In the beginning of OW2 we wanted supports to be more scrappy, to be able to fight back. That approach has since been scrapped, but you can see its effects in Illari's design
Scrapped because supports got too good at surviving, damaging, taking care of themselves, despite all the effort required for the DPS to reach them
Space Ranger has a lot of mobility, but maybe down the line supports don't need so much
_
What is your most valuable source of feedback?
Make sure we get feedback and testing from both high and low level players. Is it approachable, is there a lot of skillful elements?
Look where feedback is consistent. Both positive and negative feedback helps because it paints a fuller picture
Controller was a big blindspot for Lifeweaver. There is now controller playtesting, because they missed it and it affects a large amount of their playerbase
It's really hard for players perceptions of a character to change. Players believe that because Sojourn and Kiriko are good at the "top of the top of the top" so they're good everywhere, influencing their popularity despite not being the case
Metas are not static, they differ from region to region. Korea plays a lot more Ana and are better with her. It depends what players latch onto, and not necessarily balance changes or because it's the perfect strategy
Metas are not static, they differ from region to region. Korea plays a lot more Ana and are better with her, and they don't play Roadhog. It depends what players latch onto, and not necessarily balance changes or because it's the perfect strategy
_
Role passive plans
One of the big reasons they're there is for consistent behaviour across a role
Some things they want to tune BUT at the next patch looking at heroes themselves. As a tank you don't necessarily feel the passive, but a kit change is a lot more pronounced and make the biggest change to their performance
_
What's the team's stance on how a solo tank should feel?
Our next patch is going to focus on that, hero by hero
They set rules of engagement, decision making, dictate flow
If you're not feeling satisfied, not living in the success of your team, you're not having as much fun
We see it, tanks don't feel they can make as many plays offensively or defensively for themselves
We won't make them unkillable, but more playmaking, more decision making
_
Do psychological or objective facts influence balancing more
If we see people aren't having fun, we're going to act, even if the game is in a perfect state of balance
The most important thing is people enjoying Overwatch, how they feel when playing the game, are they playing the game, are they engaging the way we want them to?
We can't be too reactive
_
Pickable passives
During the event, each role will have 3 additional passives you can choose from. Example given: More ammo on DPS
We'll talk about what those passives might be later
Testing things, gameplay systems. Is the choice interesting? Will people change their passive before changing their hero?
Testing gameplay systems, it's a small look into something bigger we might do depending on how it goes
_
Initial first takes on Season 11 changes
Roadhog down significantly, Sojourn down significantly, starting to see Ashe pop up a bit
Symmetra up, Illari rising quickly, Junkerqueen up
Pharah continues to trend upward and upward, we're aware
Pink Mercy caused a spike in Mercy, even in comp
Cassidy very popular
A lot of role diversity
Mauga is slightly below average, doing better in more coordinated environments. Looking at things longer term for Mauga, like Cardiac Overdrive, and how effectively can he set squishies on fire?
_
Upcoming
Bugfixes happen constantly
Space Ranger is highly mobile and versatile. She brings some utility that only one character has at the moment, games are going to be really fast
Roadhog won't get more defensive capabilities, want to make Winston's ultimate and right click better, Reinhardt's charge 300 damage again
_
6v6
Not mentioned